As thousands of parents pulled their children from classes this week to protest the province’s sex-education curriculum, media coverage gave voice to parents angered by the new lesson plan.

But voices in support of the document, which will be modernized for the first time since 1998 when it’s implemented this September, have also spoken out.

Rabea Murtaza, a Toronto resident and mother of a boy in elementary school, created a Facebook page with friends this week to engage people in the Muslim community on the new curriculum.

The group, Muslims for Ontario’s Health and Physical Education Curriculum, had more than 360 members as of Thursday night.

Murtaza, who is Muslim, said coverage of several protests have given the impression the objections to the curriculum are only coming from that community. She hopes her group will help address misconceptions about the curriculum and objections in the Muslim community.

The Toronto Sun: Are you concerned people are painting this as an issue only some in Ontario’s Muslim community have with the curriculum?

Murtaza: “There is a racist and Islamophobic way to dismiss (their views). To say those people, that religion, they have to adapt or leave. The truth is, when I talk to family and friends in communities where people are pulling their kids from schools, it’s Christian groups and lots of different parents. It’s really culturally diverse. On the ground, it doesn’t feel like just Muslims.”

The Sun: Has the province done enough to reach out to those with concerns about the curriculum?

Murtaza: “There does need to be a lot more parent engagement of all parents on this kind of sensitive curriculum. I say that as someone who supports it. I think you can get parents on-board as allies and even leaders and not just as barriers.”

The Sun: Is there anything in the curriculum that doesn’t mesh with your religious beliefs?

Murtaza: “All of it meshes with my religious beliefs and with my duty as a parent to equip (my son) with knowledge and information on how to be a good person in the world.”

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A number of groups have formed online in support of Ontario’s new sex-education curriculum. Here’s a look at a few:

Message: “I set it up because there are a lot of people in Ontario who support the curriculum and just to see how to connect with people and to let the province know we support the curriculum.”

On the curriculum: “I hope they implement the curriculum in the fall and I think this is an opportunity to clarify the misinformation that some groups are spreading. We need to talk to parents that are concerned and explain to them why this is a good thing for our kids.”

Message: “A group of Muslim and Muslim parents, we got together and we said, ‘The protesters don’t speak for all Muslims.’ Also, not all the protesters are Muslim and we were seeing that collapse in the media narrative.”

On the curriculum: “We are trying to talk to other Muslims, to say look, there are many Muslims. They are diverse Muslims and queer Muslims. This curriculum is needed and important. We’re also trying to engage them on their concerns, which are real. They cannot just be dismissed as crazy or hysterical concerns.”

Number of members: 16,483 signatories on this Change.org petition. (as of Thursday night).

Message: “The curriculum hasn’t been updated since 1998. At that time many of us didn’t have the Internet. We didn’t have smartphones. Sexual harassment, unwanted sexting, which can turn into bullying, didn’t exist. We don’t have a program in place to deal with that. We need that and we appreciate that.”

On the curriculum: “What’s at stake here is our kids learning the body of scientific and psychological knowledge we’ve researched and gained in the past two decades. This education is meant to protect our children from sexual harassment, sexual assault, unwanted pregnancies, and sexually transmitted infections.”

“I don’t want to shut down the conversation. I think censorship on this issue would be the worst. If those parents who want to pull their kids out of class feel too threatened to talk about their opposing opinions, they won’t get the right facts.”

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